Google Penguin: Panda Algorithm Gets a Revamp

When Google released its first Panda update last year, it seemed that the name got more attention that the update itself.

Despite the fact that many webmasters were still reeling from the Panda changes, Google came forward with another update. This time around the search engine giant has selected another quirky name: Penguin.

What’s with the Name?

When Google releases a new algorithm, it often times assigns a name. And if no name is assigned, you can leave it up to industry professionals to take care of this. For example, Webmaster World named the 2010 change the Mayday update.

At times, it seems that Google does not want to release its “code name” to the public. During the first Panda update, Search Engine Land was made aware of the name but was not allowed to reveal the details.

Penguins are Cute but this Update is Ugly

Everybody loves penguins. However, many webmasters and affiliate marketers are hating on this latest change.

Its alternate “name” – webspam algorithm update – says it all. In short, Google has targeted sites that are spamming the search results through techniques including but not limited to keyword stuffing and cloaking.

Can I File a Reconsideration Request?

Unfortunately, since this is an automatic algorithmic change you are unable to make a reconsideration request through your Google Webmaster Tools account.

Because this is an algorithmic change, Google has no plans to make manual exceptions. Webmasters cannot ask for reconsideration of their site, but we’re happy to hear feedback about the change on our webmaster forum.

April 24, 2012 will be a day that many people remember. This was the day that the Penguin update threw a wrench into their search engine marketing plan.

5 Responses to Google Penguin: Panda Algorithm Gets a Revamp

If you want to be safe from this and future google algorithm updates, your search engine marketing plan should have the user as the primary factor in mind with high quality content. Then if you build it, they will come and google will send them to you willingly.

I’m surprised there hasnt been more comments about this already. Apologies as I am going to get on my soapbox about this update but I will try and be straight to the point if possible.

I have seen enough examples to write a book about that proves beyond any doubt that this update does not work well so far (this is not to say that it’s shortcomings wont be fixed shortly).

As someone who has been affected by the update I have some experience of its problems as I will explain. The Penguin update appears to give pages (not entire sites) a penalty and demotes them based on unnatural looking inbound links. These unnatural looking links have been proven in my case to be developed through white hat SEO methods according to Google’s guidelines. The area for concern is that according to what I have experienced and discussed with others this update has made it extremely easy for webmasters to do negative SEO on competitors sites and demote their pages in order for their pages to prevail. I will not be doing this but you can bet some webmasters will jump on this opportunity if it works and where could it end?

Results from negative SEO can probably be seen in days or weeks rather than the months or years that white hat SEO takes. Not only that but this update was meant to reduce ‘webspam’ and looking at negative SEO I can only see that this would increase webspam and blackhat SEO by those that want to hurt sites. It really is unfair to penalise a site by inbound links since webmasters do not have control over who links into their site… bad links should be rewarded with a zero and not a penalty.

This information is not proven and I know there are a lot of people that have much more knowledge than I do so if I have got it wrong please speak up.

They need to refine this update. The quality of searches has fallen off sharply. It reminds me of the crap we used to see in the 90′s. If they don’t fix it, they will see people leave them for other search engines with better quality results.